Pages

31 Oct 2011

Despite John Key refusing to be a part of the actual debate, I thought the Native Affairs election kick off on Maori television was very good. Overall it was well produced and insightful, making me hopeful that this years campaigning would be worth watching.

Unfortunately our political leaders weren't able to rise to the occasion in the insipid debate on Q+A however, mainly because the host's commentary and showmanship was utterly woeful!

And just when I thought things couldn't get much worse, along comes the Campaign debate on Sky News. OMG! How old and crusty can you get?

So in light of how bad this show was, here is a brief video mash-up highlighting the very worst parts:

The NZ Herald has become a function of the current National government, providing spin to promote a regime of disinformation.

I don't mean to dismiss all of the journalists who contribute to the widely read publication, but on the balance of things there's no doubt that more prominence is given to a flawed and corrupt right wing ethos.

The Government has again defended its reaction to the Rena disaster after a third of respondents to a Herald-DigiPoll survey thought the response was not good enough.

But more than half of those surveyed said the response was adequate or better.

Just over 36 per cent of respondents thought the response was
unsatisfactory - a view backed by opposition parties who say the
container ship's grounding on October 5 and subsequent oil spill had
been politically damaging for the Government.

At the other end of the scale, 11 per cent thought the response was "very good" and 50.3 per cent thought it adequate.

Yesterday, Environment Minister Nick Smith said the Government had been
cautious not to let politics meddle with what he called "good technical
decisions".

For starters all the other parties bar Act and United Future say that National has not handled the Rena oil spill response well. That lack of a proper oil spill response plan that Hekia Parata promised was in place is what has been damaging for National. They utterly failed.

To highlight just one instance of how much National is unaware of their own failure, here's Nick Smith talking about the governments response to the disaster:

"That also occurred quite close to an election and the politicians had
agencies doing things that looked good but actually were very damaging -
we've been very determined we make the right decisions for the right
reason and it's encouraging to see that the public is recognising that."

However on the 25 October, (twenty days after the ship first grounded) Maritime New Zealand revealed at a public meeting held in Opotiki that they were having to exert a lot of pressure on the salvors to get the fuel off the ship.

This is because the salvors have no financial interest in protecting the environment because thanks to National, there are no proper fines able to be imposed on those responsible for the disaster.

The total lack of initiative shown by National to take control of the situation has meant an extended delay in removing oil. This has increased the likelihood of further oil leaking into the ocean and damaging not just our beautiful beaches but also New Zealands reputation as a clean and green destination.

The polling on 3 News last night said 36% of people polled thought that National didn't do well, 30% only OK and 34% said National had done well... making me conclude that the NZ Herald and 3 News didn't poll anybody from the Bay of Plenty.

Being that one poll showed 11% of people polled thought Nationals response was very good and the other said 34% of people polled said they had done well clearly shows that the polling process is highly flawed. That's a 23% margin of error between these two polls.

It is unfortunate that the main newspaper in New Zealand has decided to
disproportionately disseminate Nationals propaganda and is clearly
unbalanced in its opinion.

I wouldn't be surprised if they had just called John Key to ask him what the numbers should be... although the fact that the media has been showing nice clean beaches while oil continues to wash up along the East Coast and there are now whale and seals dying is probably just as influential.

The National party would have us believe that without partial privatization of our power companies, we will not be able to fund new schools.

The disingenuous argument from National is designed to make the public feel good about loosing key strategic assets that will only increase in value as oil starts to become more scarce and expensive.

John Key dangles a carrot on a stick, that if followed will only benefit the wealthy. There simply aren't many New Zealand mum and dad investors, and foreign ownership is inevitable. Selling our power companies will mean more expensive power bills with most of the profits flowing overseas.

The profits the government expect from privatizing our power companies are the same as the profits the SOE's make for the country every nine years. That means nine years after any asset sales privatization has been undertaken; the loss in profits will be digging New Zealand further into debt.

If Nationals plan to privatize is designed just to make money to fill a black
hole in funding, it will not work. For a start, the black hole is far too deep, with National increasing government net debt from zero in 2008 to $38 billion dollars in Oct 2011.

According to the Business Roundtable (PDF) the total expected Crown proceeds from partial privatization of Air NZ, Genesis, Mighty River, Meridian and Solid Energy is less than $7 billion. However they do not factor in the cost of actually selling those assets or the revenue lost over time... con artists.

30 Oct 2011

Last Tuesday evening, a police projectile seriously injured a young 24-year-old man named Scott Olsen, during a protest in Oakland.

Police indiscriminately fired tear gas canisters and rubber bullets at
close range into a peaceful group of Occupy demonstrators without any warning.

Thankfully Scott regained consciousness on Friday but he still cannot talk because the injury is believed to have damaged the speech centre of his brain.

After marching with fellow demonstrators to protest the closure of an Occupy Oakland camp in the city, the Iraq war veteran who served twice for his country was hit in the forehead by a gas canister fired by Police in downtown Oakland. Here is the graphic and damning video:

This is disgusting Police brutality that is unacceptable in the so-called land of the free, or anywhere else for that matter. Why don't you pigs pick on someone your own size?

29 Oct 2011

I thought it was pretty disgusting to see John Key spout rhetoric in his opening address for the 2011 election last night… particularly because he blatantly and obviously bullshitted his head off.

John Keys spin was in overdrive to try and appease the masses with sickly propaganda. He oozed fake sincerity like the career politician that he is. In fact the whole address was a litany of lies from a snake oil salesman. Yuck:

Let’s highlight just a couple of John Keys contradictions:

Key says that we need to make sure New Zealander’s have jobs and hopefully the highest paid jobs.

However National has increased unemployment by over 49,000 and propose to lower the youth wage to only $10.50 per hour.

Nationals rise in GST has meant an increase in the cost of living that has not been matched by wage increases. This has disproportionately impacted the low or non-waged and has increased inequality and hardship.

National has even argued that our low waged economy is good because they think it increases foreign investment. FFS!

The fact of the matter is that National likes high unemployment because it keeps wages low… it’s as simple as that.

John Key says National is focused on getting back into surplus and we can’t continue to borrow.

However in June this year it was revealed that Bill English was borrowing an additional $100 million per week when it was not required.

National has increased the government’s net debt from zero when they gained power in 2008 to $38 billion in less than three years. This is set to double by 2013 while John Key says National will magically cut it in half.

National will not reduce the huge debt they've created by privatizing our SOE's. They have no plan for New Zealand and have failed as a government. National's free market idealism has been downgraded.

Not only did we have to put up with Hekia Parata's bold faced lies that New Zealand had the resources and manpower to deal with an oil spill the size of Deepwater Horizon… we now have to put up with oil and dead animals washing up all over our beaches precisely because she was lying.

Hekia Parata is a face lifted bitch that wouldn’t know the truth if it came up and bit her on her rather large and saggy posterior.

Parata’s lies are going to cost this country millions if not billions of dollars.

Our clean and green image is in tatters while Parata continues to bleat on about how great deep sea oil drilling is. Instead of waking up to reality, the cow totally ignores the wishes of the vast majority of New Zealanders who think drilling for oil in deep waters without any proper oil spill response capabilities is madness.

Parata said she’d consulted with local East coast Iwi concerning
deep-water oil drilling in their ancestral waters when she had not. Her
corrupt governance wastes public money on illegal Police surveillance of
environmentalists to benefit her oily masters.

The Associate and Acting Minister of Energy and Resources
has provided false figures to the public concerning the social benefit of the oil and gas industry when most of the profits go offshore. The vast majority of the workers are foreigners and there is very little benefit to New Zealand while we carry the burden when something goes wrong.

Thanks to National the maximum fines able to be imposed on companies that cause environmental disasters are pathetically woeful. Parata was repeatedly warned of this fact prior to the Rena disaster, but chose to do nothing.

The Dynasty queen grand stands about the Maui gas leak like it’s just another photo op while businesses are losing millions of dollars… all because National once again failed to ensure the infrastructure was properly maintained. Infrastructure that was not built by Kiwis I might ad.

Here she is misleading the House of Representatives with her lies:

So for being a fashion disaster, repeated and blatant lies concerning New Zealand’s oil spill response capabilities and being a kupapa… Hekia Parata is this weeks Asshole Award winner... it’s about time.

28 Oct 2011

Burger King has been given the green light to reopen and start serving its valuable customers after many businesses had to close on Tuesday because of the Maui gas pipeline leak.

Vector was first
notified about a possible gas leak at Pukearuhe last Friday, however the gas pipeline has been leaking for an unknown amount of time.

Despite many claims of workers and animal rights abuses and the phasing out of Burger King at Nato's bases in Afghanistan last year, the American multinational company was given first dibs at starting up its gas fired cookers yesterday, ahead of many New Zealand owned businesses. Voxy reports:

"Nova gave us permission to re-open earlier today on a restricted basis, meaning our staff could fire up the grills in time for dinner tonight."

"To produce Burger King's unique flame-grilled taste we rely on gas to power our open flame cookers. This has meant the Maui pipeline leak has impacted our business more strongly than some,” Burger King spokesperson, Rachael Allison said.

Good to see that the authorities have got their priorities right. The 2006/07 New Zealand Health Survey found that one in three adults were overweight (36.3%) and one in four obese (26.5%). One in five children aged 2 to 14 years were overweight (20.9%) and one in twelve was obese (8.3%).

A king-sized order of Burger King’s fries packs 590 calories and 30 grams of fat and a king-sized Burger King meal, (Double Whopper with cheese, large fries
and large drink) contains 1,800 calories (mostly derived from fat and
refined sugar). To ‘burn’ these calories would take nearly 6 hours of
cycling (at 20 miles per hour).

27 Oct 2011

Last night Patrick Gower informed us on the six O'clock News that John Key had met with disgraced Conservative "Lord" Michael Ashcroft:

Mr Key says they just had a general discussion over lunch.

“We did talk about just generally how things are going in Europe, he's obviously a big businessman as well, and just generally about politics.”

Mr Ashcroft has popped in on Mr Key like this three years ago, before the last election.

Mr Ashcroft says he does not donate here.

And even though he is close to British PM David Cameron, Mr Key says he did not even really want any vote-catching tips.

“He gave me a summary of how things are going,” says Mr Key.

Mr Key is usually quite open when it comes to his meetings with the rich and famous. His critics will argue he kept this one on the quiet because of Lord Ashcroft's controversial baggage.

John Key also said that Ashcroft is the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, when he is not... what an idiot!

Ashcroft is corrupt because he avoids tax through political insider information. Last year The Guardian reported:

Lord Ashcroft, the Conservative donor and outgoing deputy party chairman, has been accused of avoiding more than £3m in tax by engaging in a financial manoeuvre the day before new legislation would have forced him to pay tax on all his income.

The BBC programme Panorama will report tonight that the peer, who steps down from his party role today, transferred the ownership of his main UK company, the Impellam Group, on 5 April. The 64-year-old peer transferred shares worth £17m in the company to a trust to benefit his children. The following day, a law came into force compelling all members of the Lords and Commons to be registered in the UK for tax purposes and pay tax on all their worldwide income. The law had been in large measure prompted by the controversy over his tax status.

Tax lawyer Richard Frimston is quoted telling the programme that Lord
Ashcroft would have faced a large inheritance tax bill under the new
legislation. Frimston said: "If that had been done on the following day,
assets worth say £17m going into trust would have been subject to tax
at 20%, which would have created an immediate inheritance tax charge of
something in the region of £3.4m. So that was avoided by doing it on 5
April as opposed to waiting until 6 April."

It was interesting to see John Key dismiss the meeting as a regular occurrence, like it's just a little lunchtime chat between friends. More like a couple of criminals plotting on how they're going to rip us off.

Now National propagandist Cameron Slater is trying to say the corrupt Ashcroft is A OK because he sometimes meets with his daddy:

I should confess now before Patrick finds the conspiracy. My father is an office holder of the APDU, a constituent member of the IDU and has met Lord Ashcroft many times, I think he even has his cellphone number written down somewhere.

25 Oct 2011

I’ve read a few articles recently that have claimed the Occupy protests are Anti-Semitic. At first I just dismissed these claims, but after the number of reports grew, I decided to take a closer look.

There is no question that the messages from those taking part in the Worldwide Occupy movement are broad, however there is no racist undertone.

As with any group, there are a few misinformed people, but divisive claims of widespread Anti-Semitism are false and designed to turn people against the revolution in a most sinister way.

Accusing people of being a Semite or Anti-Semite is an old tactic that has been used effectively throughout the ages, with disastrous consequences. The ruse relies on people's prejudices and works to create division within the population where a division does not naturally exist.

The political connotation to this divisiveness could not be better highlighted than in the video below. Check out the agent provocateurs:

The fact that the right-winger’s have started to use such a despicable tactic to try and weaken the Occupy movement clearly shows that they're frightened and desperate. That's because social media is usurping their normal propaganda tools and their lies are glaringly obvious.

Government’s that choose to use violence to try and quell the uprising are experiencing a backlash from the general public, which will only function to strengthen the movement.

If the authorities want the Occupy protesters to disband, the only choice they have is to change the system... otherwise the people will simply get stronger and eventually choke the corrupted Capitalist monster to death.

Published by the
Jackal

22 Oct 2011

There seems to be a disposition of late for some commentators to use “environmentalist” like it’s a dirty word. Some even go as far as to label all environmentalists as dirty hippies. This type of fundamentally defunct thought process is obviously wrong!

People who can define themselves as environmentalists come from all walks of life, including scientists, politicians and clean cut business people who see the benefit in protecting the environment for future generations. In fact children are often the most ardent environmentalists around, mainly because they don’t associate any financial benefit to ruining the environment.

The terrible truth of the matter is that mankind is destroying the delicate environment that we rely on to survive. Some of this destruction is caused through a lack of oversight and cost cutting measures to maximise profits. However some environmental pollution is far harder to see or mitigate against.

The School of Biology & Environmental Sciences in Dublin, has found that small fragments of plastics like acrylic, polyethylene, polypropylene, polyamide and polyester is accumulating in marine habitats and that ingestion of these micro-plastic provides a potential pathway for the transfer of pollutants, monomers, and plastic-additives to organisms with uncertain consequences for their health.

The study also found that the main source of micro-plastic appears to be through sewage contaminated by fibres from washing clothes.

The micro-plastics contain harmful and often carcinogenic ingredients which go into the bodies of animals and could be transferred to people who consume seafood. The study advocates that clothing and washing machine manufacturers need to be aware of the problem and to seek ways to reduce the release of micro-plastic into waste-water.

I received a very interesting email today. It's all about the poisonous substance known as Corexit 9500 that's been used on the Bay of Plenty oil spill by Maritime New Zealand.

What makes this email even more relevant is that the authorities didn't deliver any gloves to most of the people cleaning up the oil spill. That means the locals trying to clean up somebody else's mess often have inadequate protective equipment and will be exposed to deadly toxins.

Here's what Australian Ocean Protection Activist and Environmental Campaigner Ashiya Austin has to say about Corexit:

The news that NZ has opted to use the deadly Corexit dispersant in the Tauranga Port oil spill travelled like wildfire around the Internet environmental activist community yesterday.

That NZ would use this dispersant which has been banned in eighteen countries and has caused huge controversy in the US was greeted with shock and horror by many eco activists who have been watching and documenting the destruction it has caused in the Gulf of Mexico.

Marine toxicologist Riki Ott who has worked tirelessly to stop Corexit in the GoM says Corexit can cause havoc in a person’s body and lead to death.

Not only is Corexit highly toxic, expert’s say it is less effective than other dispersants, and has actually worsened the damage caused by the oil spill.

At the beginning of the Corexit debate in the GoM, Toxicologist Dr. Susan Shaw, Founder and Director of the Marine Environmental Research Institute went diving into the oil spill to examine the chemicals present. Dr.Shaw told CNN "I can tell you what happens to people, because I was in the oil". She said she saw shrimpers throwing their nets into water, and water from the nets splashing on their skin.

One of these men, she said, experienced a headache that lasted three weeks. He had heart palpitations, muscle spasm and bleeding from the rectum. She said; "That’s what Corexit does, it ruptures red blood cells, causes internal bleeding and liver and kidney damage". She said that combined with oil Corexit is even more toxic and goes right through skin. That the solvents penetrate skin, taking oil into the cells and organs and this stuff is toxic to every organ system in the body.

According to John Sheffield a chemist with Alabaster, a Texan company specializing in bio remedial products, the oil industry is involved in a cover up of environmentally friendly products. This is to maintain a monopoly on their own products and to control the actual amount of "clean up" restoration or remediation they must do.

He says "The products the oil industry use (Corexit dispersant and booms) are made from petroleum. When the public sees them pouring the toxic dispersant Corexit into the spill, what they see is similar to watching an arsonist pour gas onto a fire, only from an environmental perspective".

Corexit dispersant, he says,is a hydrocarbon petroleum product just like paint thinner, lighter fluid, anti freeze or kerosene. Mr Sheffield says Corexit dispersants are the only solution the oil industry allows. The industry made money off Corexit as they poured it into the Gulf where it increased the contamination and dissolved the pollution to hide it.

The main ingredient in Corexit is an Exxon solvent line called Norpar. It is basically an oil industry waste product repackaged for sale. It was made by the oil industry for the oil industry to deal with (hide) it's own issue and it is an extremely outdated and hazardous answer. Mr Sheffield says "Even our own EPA data ranks Corexit as being 20 times more toxic, and far less effective than other dispersants."

Cleanup workers exposed to Corexit in the GoM experienced identical symptoms to those of the shrimper in Dr Shaw's report. At the height of the Corexit debate in the GoM, CNN reported that all workers using Corexit in the Exxon Alaskan oil spill of 1989 had died.

It is not only people working and living close to the spill in the Gulf who have been affected; there has been an epidemic of illness among residents and many reports of marine wildlife death.

Another report on Corexit states that the active ingredient of the toxic chemical dispersant, which is up to 60% by volume, is a neurotoxin pesticide that is acutely toxic to both human and aquatic life causes cancer and may cause reproductive side effects. It says the human health hazards are chronic.

In fact the neurotoxin pesticide that is lethal to 50% of life in concentrations as little as 2.6 parts per million has been banned for use in the UK since 1998 because it failed the UK “Rocky shore test” which assures that the dispersant does not cause a “significant deleterious ecological change” or to put that in layman’s terms it can kill off the entire food chain.

Corexit has also earned the highest EPA warning label for toxicity. The American EPA states that the effects of the toxic chemicals to the eye are corrosive resulting in irreversible destruction of ocular tissue and other tissue with corneal involvement along with a burning that can persist for more than 21 days. Those effects to human skin are corrosive resulting in tissue destruction into the dermis and/or scarring.

It does not take imagination to see how toxic this chemical is to marine life.

Corexit was widely used after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill and according to a literature review performed by the group the Alaska Community Action on Toxics was later linked with widespread long lasting health impacts in people including respiratory, nervous system, liver, kidney and blood disorders.

The main ingredients of Corexit are 2-Butoxyethanol, which can make up to 60% of the dispersant and is known to be toxic to blood, kidneys, liver, and the central nervous system.

2-Butoxyethanol is also known to cause cancer, birth defects and has been found to also cause genetic mutations.

Corexit is listed as an environmental hazardous material; it contains Arsenic, Cadmium, Chromium, Mercury, and Cyanide.

The Alaskan report says that by BP’s own admission, Corexit has the potential for bioaccumulation, meaning it has the potential to accumulate in the tissues of organism beginning with the first organism in a food chain.

Corexit is lethal in as little as 2.6 parts per million where oil is lethal in 11 parts per million, meaning that Corexit is over 4 times more toxic than oil.

Furthermore scientific studies show that oil dispersed with Corexit is 11 times more lethal than oil alone.

Perhaps the most astounding fact is that the American EPA ordered BP to stop using the dispersants but the company refused. Armed with the facts of the chemical about to be unleashed in Tauranga, activists and scientists worldwide are now watching NZ.

19 Oct 2011

National promised to create 170,000 jobs in the 2010 budget and failed to deliver. In fact unemployment has increased by around 57,000 since National took over. They then made the same promise to create 170,000 jobs in the 2011 budget.